After another fifteen minutes, some of his men were muttering the same question. Martmann watched them, but they were all studiously avoiding his eye. He chose one at random.
“You there,” he said, pointing to one of his men, who hadn’t bitten his tongue in time, “what’s that you were saying?”
The trooper, suddenly aware of where his master’s interest might be leading, swallowed and tried to look innocent. He failed. His was not an innocent face, which was one of the reasons he had ended up in this miserable posting.
“Oh, nothing really, sire,” he said, and looked at his companions for support. They drew away from him, edging along the table on each side. Feeling as though he was about to be hit by lightning, the soldier shrugged and tried to smile.
“Nothing?” Martmann asked. Having selected his volunteer, he was damned if he was going to let him wriggle out of doing his duty. “I thought you said something about the sergeant? Doesn’t do to talk about a man behind his back, you know.”
“I was just wondering how… how long the sergeant will be.”
“Good question,” Martmann said, smiling the smile of a gambler who has just forced an ace. “In fact, why don’t you pop outside and find out? Better take a torch with you, too.”
“Yes, sire,” the man said dismally. “Oh, shall I take my section with me, too? The sergeant might be able to use us.”
“Of course,” Martmann said, nodding.
The volunteer’s companions gave him a murderous look, and then all five got to their feet. Without a word, they marched over to the wall upon which their armaments hung. Unlike the first party, they took their time, strapping on plate armour, sliding into mail and fastening helmets. Martmann nodded to them as they clinked to the end of the hall, saluted, and then disappeared down the steps.
The door boomed as it opened and then closed, and they were gone.
Martmann waited. The remaining ten men waited. In the kitchen, the servants waited, too, until Martmann bellowed for them to bring in more ale. When it arrived, he and his men drank quickly, but silently, their ears straining all the while to catch any sound of what was happening outside.
They listened in vain. There were no screams, and no cries for help. There was nothing but the slow, soothing breath of the wind over the grassland, and the sputters of the torches within the keep.
After half an hour, the seneschal finished another pot of ale, and leaned over to the nearest of his men.
“You,” he said, “go and make sure the bar is drawn across the door.”
Before the man could obey, one of his comrades intervened. He was the oldest man in the company, one of the oldest men in the baron’s employ, even. His white whiskers and his rheumatism had earned him this posting, and after a lifetime of struggle, he had welcomed the peace of it as much as Martmann had. Still, the old soldier had lived long enough to know that pretending to be deaf was no way to lead a quiet life.
“Sire,” he said, turning to the seneschal, “don’t you think it strange that our comrades have disappeared?”
“They haven’t disappeared,” Martmann snapped. “They’re just… tardy.”
The old soldier, however, wasn’t about to be put off so easily.
“The sergeant went an hour ago. Why hasn’t he returned? Why haven’t the men you sent to find out what he was doing returned?”
Martmann fidgeted with his carving, and, even though he was looking down, he could feel the eyes of the entire company on him. This all really was too tiring. Why should he care if his soldiers wanted to wander around in the dark?
“I don’t know,” he admitted, and then decided to play his trump card, “but if you’re so interested, feel free to go and find out.”
“Never divide your forces,” the old soldier said, with the monotone voice of a child who has learned his lessons by rote, “that’s what the old baron said.”
“Did he?” Martmann asked, nastily. He swore and got to his feet. “All this trouble over a few lousy wolves. Well, all right. I suppose we should go and hurry them up, but it really is too bad.”
Another shriek of pain came from outside. This time there was no mistaking its humanity. In amongst the sheer, hysterical terror of the sound there were words, although Martmann couldn’t understand what they were.
“Probably an animal,” he said vaguely. Then, seeing the expressions on his men’s faces, he realised that there was nothing for it. He was going to have to face the truth.
Damn.
“Right, all right then. I suppose we should be on the safe side. Sieggi! Karl! Get down and make sure that the front door’s secure. I mean, barricade it, and don’t open it for anyone.”
“What about—”
“Just do it!” Martmann screamed. He put his fingers to his temples, and took a deep breath before continuing.
“Gerhardt, get your men armoured. Quickly! You, what’s your name? Right, go to the kitchen and tell the servants to arm themselves: kitchen knives, meat hammers, whatever. The rest of you, get to the windows and try to see what the hell is going on.”
The hall exploded into activity, and the old man followed Martmann as he went to retrieve his armour.
“Sire, I have no doubt that we are under attack,” he said. “I remember when 1 was with the old baron in Geimshein. We were surrounded, and the enemy tried to shake our nerve by torturing prisoners.”
“Did it work?” Martmann asked as he buckled his breastplate on.
“No. We decided to fight to the death rather than risk the same fate.”
“Well, that is a cheerful tale,” Martmann muttered. He selected a four-pointed mace from the wall, pushed the carving he had been holding into his belt, and strode over to peer out of the nearest window. He might as well have been looking at a black-painted wall.
“I can’t see anything,” he said, and, with the vague hope that that might settle the matter, he bolted the window, and wandered back over to the table and his pot of ale. This was ridiculous. Why should he have to worry about the foolishness of his men? They should have stayed inside, or been more careful. For Sigmar’s sake, they were supposed to be professionals.
The old trooper had been following his seneschal. He had seen better commanders than this one collapse into indecision, and he was damned if he was going to let it happen here. He was old, but he wasn’t ready to give up living yet.
“Sire,” he said, “we can either go out to offer help to our comrades, or we can secure the fortress. Which shall it be?”
“We have secured the fortress,” Martmann snapped.
“You don’t think that we should—”
“No!” This time the seneschal shouted, and all eyes turned to him. He took a deep breath, and tried to ignore the pounding in his temples. “No. Just go and stand by that window, would you? I want to think.”
The old trooper saluted again and marched off, muttering.
Let him mutter, Martmann thought, running a hand through his hair as he cast his eyes around his men. They were sullen and frightened, like cattle penned in a slaughterhouse. He supposed that he should have offered them some words of encouragement or a rousing speech. He rejected the idea. Why bother? He had given them the chance to stay safely inside instead.
Still, it would be nice to know what was out there: orcs, maybe, except that the only direction orcs could have come from would have taken them through the town of Biltong. So maybe it was bandits, but why should bandits attack the outpost? It wasn’t as though Martmann had ever been any trouble to them, quite the opposite. He’d even done a bit of quiet business with them from time to time.
The seneschal felt the unfamiliar weight of the mace in his hand, and flexed his shoulders within the restrictive harness of his armour. Then he started to pace around the hall while he tried to think.
He had completed the first circuit when the torches started to go out.
Martmann saw the first one as it died. One minute the flame was burning as bright and as steadily as t
he noon day sun, the next it was choking and spluttering, finally dying altogether in a puff of black smoke. The shadows that lay beneath the table and between the men grew. They seemed to be creeping towards Martmann, and he swallowed nervously.
“You,” Martmann snapped at one of the men, “get that thing lit.”
“Yes, sire,” the man said, nodding. He lifted the torch from the bracket beside him, and went to light the other one.
As he tried to light the torch another one went out on the other side of the hall, and then another. Then three blinked out in rapid succession, one after the other, casting the room into near darkness. The men shifted uneasily, their eyes growing wide and white in the gloom. Somebody dropped a cleaver and one of the serving staff screamed.
“Hold your positions,” Martmann barked, embarrassed that he too had almost screamed. His pulse was pounding and he cursed the sergeant for abandoning him. “You there, you from the kitchens, go and get some more torches from below, and you,” he said, turning to the man who was still trying to light the torch, “what’s wrong with you man? Get that thing lit for Sigmar’s sake.”
“It won’t light,” the man whined. Martmann was horrified, as much by the tone in the man’s voice as by his inability to light the torch. He knew that this villain was a veteran of both battle and gaol, but he sounded like a frightened child.
“Here, give it to me,” Martmann said, striding over to him, and grabbing the torch. As soon as his fingers touched the wood, the flame flickered and then died. Seneschal and soldier looked at each other over the smoking bundle, their eyes bright with unspoken tenors.
“There must be a draught,” Martmann said, even though he knew that he was sweating in air that was as cold and as still as that in a tomb.
“Why are all the torches going out?” one of the kitchen staff whined, and suddenly they were all talking, wailing and crying.
“Silence!” Martmann snapped, striding over to them, and waving his mace threateningly. “It’s just a draught, damn you, a draught! It’s nothing.”
Perhaps it was the terror that they saw in Martmann’s eyes, but the kitchen staff were not to be so easily consoled. Those nearest to him shrank away, but the others ignored him. Their sobbing echoed around the hall, half-lit in the dying light of the last few torches.
They didn’t stop until the knocking started. It was a steady, metronome beat, and it boomed on the door, and through the hall like some terrible pulse. Martmann felt a ridiculous urge to hide beneath the table. He dismissed it and turned to his men, but there was no inspiration to be found in their pinched and shadowed faces, only fear and confusion.
The knocking continued. Martmann swung his mace nervously. He forced himself to walk across the hall, which he had never before realised was so big, and down the steps that led to the lower hall and the door.
Four men were cowering down there, their eyes fastened to the iron-bound oak of the door. It was latched, Martmann was relieved to see, and barricaded with some of the barrels from the store room. Meanwhile, great bundles of torches fizzled and spat. The men had obviously helped themselves to the stores.
“Who is it?” Martmann asked, his voice no more than a squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again, “Is that you, sergeant?”
The knocking continued as steadily as ever, and Martmann wondered how long it would be before the wood started to splinter. Even to his terrified ear, it sounded more like a fist than a battering ram, but if the rhythm carried on, then eventually… he suddenly felt like throwing up.
“Sergeant?” he asked again, swallowing and drawing closer to the door. “Is that you?”
Despite the pleading in his voice there was no reply from outside the door, but, even if there had been, Martmann would have been unable to hear it beneath the sudden terrible cacophony that had broken out upstairs.
The screams of the women merged with the terrified calls of his men, and Martmann heard a series of garbled warnings, followed by the shattering crash of falling roof tiles, and a single, high-pitched shriek.
Frozen at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the hall, Martmann felt his bladder release, and warmth flow down his legs. He had no idea what could have broken into his fortress, but there was no doubt that something had entered. Even in the fizzling torchlight, he could see the cloud of masonry dust that came rolling down the stairs.
For the first time, he could hear the voices of his enemy, too. They were as shrill as those of the kitchen servants, and as sharp as claws dragged across slate. They were joyful, too, although with a horrible twisted joy that was the perfect counterpoint to their victims’ cries of terror and desperation.
Suddenly, two figures emerged from the darkness at the top of the stairs. He whimpered with terror, before realising that they were two of his own men. The steel of their armour was as dark with blood as the pallor of their faces, although their master was in no mood to show any mercy on that account.
“Hold your ground,” he squeaked, waving vaguely towards them with his mace.
The two men stopped, and, for a moment, the seneschal thought that it was because of his orders. Then, they disappeared upwards, impossibly upwards, flying up above the lintel of the door as though they were two hooked fish being dragged from a pond.
Even above the din of the slaughter that was already taking place, Martmann could hear the slavering, slobbering sound of the men’s doom. He watched, fascinated, as blood started to rain down onto the stairs. It pooled and ran, a single trickle of it making its way down the stone steps towards him relentlessly.
He stared at it, unable to move, until, behind him, he heard the sound of the door being unbolted.
“What are you doing?” he asked, wild-eyed with terror.
“We’re deserting,” one of the men said. “This isn’t a fortress anymore. It’s a trap, a rat trap.” Even as he worked, he began to cackle hysterically, tears running down his unshaven cheeks.
“You’ll come with us if you have any sense,” one of his comrades said as he rolled the last of the barrels away.
Martmann dithered. Already, the noises of the brief battle from above were dying down. The noises that replaced them were worse, so much worse. They were the sounds of feasting. He could hear the silky slap of tearing flesh, and a constant slurping sound, as though a dozen dogs were licking spilt milk off the stone floor.
“Hurry up then,” he said, suddenly whispering. He edged further back from the staircase, not wanting to see what might come down from above, but not daring to look away either. The glow of light from the few remaining torches was enough to send distorted shadows dancing across the piece of wall that he could see at the top of the stairs.
Whatever they were, they were not reassuring.
The door squeaked open behind him. Martmann turned, just as something loomed up at the top of the stairs. He didn’t stay to see what it was. Instead, he turned to follow the fleeing men out into the night, elbowing his way past the last of them, and haring out of the fortress that he had sworn to defend.
He blinked, and suddenly the darkness around him seemed alive with pale grey shapes. There was a cry of warning, a sudden scream, and then an explosion of pain on the back of his head.
The seneschal collapsed, almost willingly into a deep, dark oblivion.
Martmann awoke with one of the worst hangovers he had had for a long time. His head throbbed in time with the beating of his heart, and his mouth felt like an orc’s toilet.
He groaned and, as he sat up, he realised that he had fallen asleep on the table. His eyes flickered open, and then flickered back shut. Even though the hall was lit only by a single shaft of daylight, it was too bright for Martmann, and he hid his face in his hands.
After some time sitting like that, he realised that his body ached almost as much as his head, his muscles cold and knotted after spending a night on the hard oak. He thought about throwing up. It seemed like a good idea in theory, although the effort, he decided, was probably too much
for him.
He groaned again and took a deep, shuddering breath. He tried to remember what he had been drinking, when, through the fog of his befuddled thoughts, there loomed the terrible memory of what he had been doing the night before.
It hadn’t been drinking.
The sudden burst of panic burned through his concussion as the memories came flooding back, and, despite the painful glare, Martmann opened his eyes and peered around the gloomy interior of his hall. He realised, for the first time, that the shaft of light was not coming from the shuttered windows, but down from the very ceiling. The sunshine punched down through a hole in the roof to illuminate a ragged circle of shattered tiles, powdered with dust and stained with patches of black. The rest of the hall was as dark as night by comparison, and, apart from the flies that buzzed everywhere, it seemed to be deserted.
What in Sigmar’s name had happened, Martmann wondered, as he blinked tears from his eyes and squinted into the gloom. What was that stink? It was like nothing Martmann had ever smelled before, or ever wanted to smell again. It was as sharp as rotting fish, and as cloying as sewage. It was worse than either of those things, though, and, as Martmann thought about it, his gorge rose, and he leaned forward to vomit, his body convulsing until there was nothing left in his stomach to throw up.
“Oh Sigmar,” he whined miserably, tears rolling down his cheeks. He had just seen the shapes of the things that waited in the gloom around him.
They were pale things, like ghosts in the darkness, although there was a horrible, translucent reality to the black oil of their eyes and the slavering gleam of their fangs. Martmann whimpered as they edged towards him, slowly and half-seen. If it hadn’t been for the occasional turn of detritus beneath their feet, or the occasional hiss of breath, he would have tried to believe that they were just figments of his imagination, of delirium tremens perhaps. Unfortunately, his vision had cleared enough for him to make out their forms, their horrible, twisted forms.
Another man might have thought about trying to find a weapon amongst the ruin around him, but not Martmann. He drew his knees up to his chest like a frightened child, and told himself that, yes, of course, this must be delirium tremens. He had seen it take other men after too much drinking. Now, it had taken him. He clung to the idea as desperately as a man holding on to the edge of an abyss.
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